


It's Your Turn

by Multifandom_damnation



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Blood Loss, Blood and Violence, Bullying, Canon Compliant, Developing Friendships, Family History, Family Issues, Gen, Hemophilia, Hero Worship, Heroism, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Leaving Home, Medical Conditions, Nates life before the legends, Near Death Experiences, Pre-Canon, Self-Discovery, Self-Sacrifice, Time Travel, new powers, only minor though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-02
Updated: 2018-11-02
Packaged: 2019-08-14 04:48:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16486196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multifandom_damnation/pseuds/Multifandom_damnation
Summary: Nate was just a child when he was diagnosed with an incurable blood condition that he could hardly pronounce never mind spell and his parents locked him away in his bedroom, away from the unforgiving outside world so Nate would never get hurt. He has always been considered fragile glass, fine china, a porcine doll. Nate's one true dream was to grow up and become a hero like his grandfather- rise up and help people, as he knows he was always meant to. Survival is built deep into his bones- he can feel it passed down from Commander Steel and onto Nate.He might get his wish to become a hero after all. Maybe "incurable" doesn't mean "impossible" any more- especially not with the Legends.





	It's Your Turn

**Author's Note:**

> I know, like the Flash fandom, not many people read Legends of Tomorrow. I really love Nate and his story. He's great. This is basically Nate dealing with his Haemophilia through the ages of his life before he met the Legends. Hope you like it, I'm actually pretty proud of it x
> 
> Full disclosure, I don't actually know how old Nate is in the show and I couldn't find it anywhere on google but he seems pretty young-ish, so I made him 23 when he joined the legends. That's probably wrong though.

Nate is 2 years old when he pricks his finger on one of his mother’s sewing needles and while the puncture is small, the blood has already leaked out of the first Band-Aid they’ve covered him in. He has to sit over the sink with his finger dripping red into the sterile chrome of the basin.

Nate is 4 years old when he falls over on his way to the park, scraping his knee on the gravel- his blood drips steadily onto the dirt. His mother screams and tries to clean him up with the tissues she keeps handy in her purse, but soon she's holding a handful of bloody tissues and the floor where they're sitting looks like the scene of a murder.

Nate is 4 years and 6 months old when his parents take him to the hospital. _Haemophilia_ , they called it, and Nate isn't old enough to know what that means but by the looks on his parents' faces and their hushed conversation the whole way home, he knows it probably isn't good.

Nate is 5 years and 3 months old when his parents begin stacking their shelves with first-aid kits filled to the brim with bandages and Band-Aids and gauze. Stitches too- even though Nate doesn't think his parents know how to stitch skin.

Nate is 6 years old when he runs into a brick wall, too busy playing Mario on his Gameboy to see it coming and he runs head-first into it. He can feel the warm blood dripping down his chin from his nose just before he hears his mother scream and Hank swear about the blood on the carpet.

Nate is 6 years and 9 months old when he’s given a little card with his name and picture on it, “HAEMOPHILIAC” written on it in big, bold letters. It's the first time Nate has ever seen it written out and he stares at it until the spelling was committed to memory.

Nate is 7 years old when he runs his hand along an edge piece of metal that hangs off of his house to see if he really did bleed too much. He’d gotten into a lot of trouble for that.

Nate is 9 years and 8 days old when he cuts his palm on a sharp rock when Hank brings him fishing when his mother was out and they couldn’t find a babysitter for the day. Hank swears and shoves Nate’s hand under the water until it stops bleeding and wraps a towel around it, making Nate sit in a corner the entire time. Nate goes home without even picking up a fishing rod.

Nate is 10 years and 2 months old when he comes come covered in bruises after rolling down a hill playing with the other kids, grass in his hair and dark purple spots dotting his fragile body. 

Nate is 10 years and 5 months old when a new girl moves into the house across the street. He doesn't really know what love is yet, but he is sure that this is what it felt like- fire in his veins. His parents reluctantly give him permission to spend the day at her house, reassured that they can see the house from their kitchen window. Nate hasn't even made it across the street, Lana waiting for him at her front door with a smile, when Todd Davis and his cronies come out from the shadows and punch him in the face- Nate can feel the crack of bone. He goes down like a sack of potatoes, covering his face, Lana and his parents sprinting towards him in panic and Todd Davis walking away laughing. Nate thinks he has never seen so much blood pour from his body.

Nate is 12 years old and his parents are forcing him to stay in his room ‘for his own good’ and Nate looks out the window every day and is jealous of all the other kids that get to live happy, normal lives.

Nate is 13 years and 2 months old when he resigns himself to never leaving his bedroom again, with its many beeping medical monitors, it’s sensors and his parents' security cameras. He decides that he’d be treated with more respect in prison.

Nate is 14 years old and he spends all his time reading books about history and watching documentaries of the time long before he was born. He takes joy in the stories of heroics and death and events come to pass that have shaped his world as he knows it. One day, he swears, he will escape his prison disguised as his bedroom and adventure out into the real world. And if he dies- so be it. At least he had fun while doing it.

Nate is 15 and 8 months old and he’s read all the books in his room five times over, finishing them faster than his parents can buy them or borrow them from the library. He’s taken to reading news articles and watching webinars on his laptop, just to satisfy his desperate need for new info and to quench his boredom. He’s almost run out of articles.

Nate is 15 and 11 months old and he decides that he’s not going to be stuck in his room all his life like the Boy in the Bubble- he’s going to _be_ someone.

Nate is 16 and 5 months old and he leaves home against his parents’ wishes and takes a train to the university he’s enrolled in behind their backs. _Hank's_ _got money_ , Nate thinks on the train with his headphones in and without any of the remorse he probably should have, _they’ll get over it._

Nate is 18 and a smiling university student, studying history and the time before time- some kid drops a pair of scissors from the row above him and Nate stupidly catches them instead of pushing the kid below them out of the way. He excuses himself to the bathroom and watches the blood drip into the white sink. Why the hell were they using scissors in a history class anyway?

Nate is 19 and 6 days when he holds tight to his grandfather’s dog tags and prays that this time doesn’t kill him as he closes his eyes against the sting of a needle into his arm and the cool rush of blood being flooded into his veins. He hasn’t finished his course. He hasn’t kissed Tracy Summers yet. He doesn’t know what it’s like to be a hero, to _matter_. He wasn’t even in the car when it crashed- just managed to push someone else out of the way and take the beating himself. Maybe he’s not cut out to be a hero and he should just stop before he gets himself killed. Or worse- prove his patents right.

Nate is 21 years old and he doesn’t even know what he’s done wrong but he’s been left bleeding and broken in a dark alleyway and he doesn’t know what time it is or who did it or what alley he’s in but oh god- he got a top score for one of his essays. Is this the price for being smart? His roommate finds him hours later and it’s the second time he’s needed a desperate blood transfusion.

Nate is 22 years old when he graduates university, clutching tight to his dog tags and hoping against hope that he’s made his grandfather proud and promising that one day he would be the hero he expected.

Nate is 22 and 8 months old when he figures out Oliver Queen is the Green Arrow, Ray Palmer is the ATOM, Sara Lance is the White Canary. It all makes sense once he goes over all the information and findings of the Arrow and all the connections line up.

Nate is 22 and 9 months old when he finds all the connections that prove that the Legends are in danger and he breaks into the building and evaded security to meet Mayor Oliver Queen and explain his findings and that his friends are in danger. To Nate’s surprise, Oliver believes him and agrees to help him find the Timeship and Oliver’s missing friends.

Nate is 22 years and 10 months old and not only does he discover the forgotten remnants of the Timeship but he brings back its occupants who were scattered across time. He feels like a hero- he thinks he might be one, too.

Nate is 22 years and 10 months old when he gets hurt out on the field, somewhere he shouldn’t even have been, and hides it from Sara. It’s been a part of him all his life and for once Nate just wants it to fade away. But she’s persistent- he’ll crack eventually. He knows he will. He always has been weak.

Nate is 22 years 10 months old and he meets the man whose dog-tags he wears around his neck, the grandfather whose image Nate wanted to remake himself in. It’s a shame that his grandfather's a hero and Nate is a haemophiliac history buff. Commander Steel punches Nate in the face and if he is being honest with himself, the first contact with his idol could have been better.

Nate is 22 years and 10 months old when Sara finds out- he’s proud of himself for not cracking under the strain and confessing but she figures it out on her own and tries to do exactly what Nate expected. She doesn't understand.

Nate is 22 years and 10 months old and despite Sara’s warning, Nate ignores her and charges headlong into battle to save his grandfather, getting them far away enough that the bomb only manages to clip them in its aftershocks and the motorbike crashes ungracefully against the dirt. Nate dimly registers that he’s probably bleeding a lot but that tiresome worry is overlooked by the realisation that he was finally the hero he deserved to be.

Nate is 22 years and 10 months old and he is lying unconscious on a med bay bed while his new friend Ray sticks an impromptu and untested drug into his body. If Nate was conscious, they would be having very stern words about that decision. 

Nate is 22 years and 10 months old and his new yet violent friend is being attacked by one of Nate’s grandfather’s teammates and while Nate doesn’t know Mick too well, he can’t let this man die for no reason. He doesn’t even think, but he barges in and throws his arm up to stop Vixen before she kills Mick and- his arm doesn’t break and his body doesn’t bleed. Instead, it turns to steel, as chromatic as his mother’s basin that was once coated in dripping red blood, and no pain can touch him.

Nate is 22 years and 10 months old when he discovers that not only has Ray’s experimental drug given him skin made of metal, but it’s purged the haemophilia from his body and made him a new, impenetrable person. A new asset. 

Nate is 22 years and 11 months old when he takes on the name Citizen Steel in honour of his grandfather. The Legends- his new team- have agreed to let him stay and fight with them. Nate likes to think that the decision was made before he’d even asked.

Nate is 23 years old when he becomes the hero he always dreamt of becoming.


End file.
